


All That You Love Will Be Carried Away

by beetle



Category: Deadpool (2016), Deadpool (Comics), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of past suicide, Peter Parker is more damaged than anyone knows, Spideypool - Freeform, Throne of Misery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 12:09:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7757320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter is massively damaged. But then, so is Deadpool. Written for this Tumblr prompt (http://alkjira.tumblr.com/post/148802864987/writing-prompt-115) on Alkjira’s Tumblr. See end notes for full prompt.:</p><p>This’s mostly free-floating angst and a soupcon of smut. But you should probably assume some vague, incidental spoilers for the MCU/The Amazing Spider-Man. Mentions of suicides.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That You Love Will Be Carried Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Orcusnox (Cat9894)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cat9894/gifts).



_Scrape. Scrape. Scrape._

 

Each time DP’s dagger passed across the whetstone was like an accusation.

 

_Scrape. Scrape. Scrape._

 

Or a rebuke.

 

_Scrape. Scrape. Scra—_

 

Peter shifted his feet soundlessly, wanting and wishing for the ability to run and hide. He couldn’t take _this_ , anymore. The weeks of conspicuous silence or the minutes of determined scraping.

 

“Are you, uh . . . angry, DP?”

 

The scraping stopped for a moment—but a moment, only. Then it continued again, as annoying to Peter as when Tammy, an intern/gofer at the _Bugle_ , clicked her pen non-stop for hours straight. Even while on the phone.

 

The scraping was somehow worse, though. Less acceptable and more than annoying. Enough to drive Peter off his fucking rocker if he didn’t find a way to make it _stop_.

 

“Why would you say that, Spider-Man?” DP gritted out in a decidedly false-sounding nonchalant tone, his averted gaze and bowed head turning to the row upon row of knives and daggers lined up for inspection and sharpening on his surprisingly large kitchen table in his surprisingly larger kitchen.

 

It, of course, never even occurred to Peter to take his red rubber ball and just _go home_. Didn’t occur to him to, at last, just let Deadpool _alone_ , as the other man seemed to so often want, lately.

 

No. That was the one thing, it seemed, Peter could _not_ do in regard to the mercenary.

 

Instead, he shifted and wrung his hands until they began to stick together instinctively. He pried them apart with a sigh and watched DP place his dagger— _Matilda_ , Peter believed this one was named—on his weapon-riddled kitchen-table, and grab one of the Ladies . . . his deadly katanas.

 

DP caressed her almost lovingly before running the whetstone down her length, muttering either to the well-cared for sword, or perhaps to one of his Boxes. Peter watched his erstwhile friend grimly finish with his katana, and place it— _her_ , no doubt, though Peter didn’t know what DP had named the katanas and the merc was hinky about sharing that info—on the table. Then DP eyed his other knives as if sizing them up to see which needed sharpening most. He finally settled on one and picked it up.

 

“Well, you keep eyeing your knife collection, and honestly? It’s slightly disconcerting.”

 

“ _Only slighty_?” _Scrape-scrape-scrape_. Faster, now, as if DP was suddenly a lot less controlled than he usually was when tending to the weapons that kept him in work and kept him _alive_. He snorted, still gazing intently at his current dagger: a particularly wicked-looking, curved thing that Peter recognized as being _Daisy Chainsaw_ , one of DP’s favorites. “Well, I must be slipping in my old age, then, Spider-Man.”

 

Throwaway, smart-ass line and throwaway, smart-ass tone. Status-fucking-quo. Same shit, different day. Everything as-per-goddamn-usual, in the world of Spider-Man and his some-time sidekick, Deadpool.

 

Only . . . it really wasn’t, was it?

 

Not when DP’s tone was—not exactly cold, no—utterly lacking in its habitual warmth and eagerness whenever his so-called hero was around. . . .

 

Peter sighed heavily, wanting to take the chair across from DP’s, even though he knew from experience that the damn thing not only creaked like it was literally on its last leg, but was also ridiculously uncomfortable, as was the one DP was currently perched on. Peter’s ass twinged in remembrance of past discomfort that’d turned into eventual numbness as he’d sat for minutes, then hours on that fucking torture-device passed off as furniture, listening to DP’s amusing bullshit.

 

“Listen, DP . . . _Wade_ . . . I won’t know how to fix what I messed up unless you _tell_ me.” Peter began the speech he’d planned out on the way to DP’s apartment, taking a cautious, small step toward the mercenary, so as not to startle. DP’s reflexes were _insanely_ well-honed, even to Spider-Man. Plus he had a low threshold for surprises. Peter had learned early in their friendship to _never_ sneak up on DP.

 

And DP had never been _able_ to sneak up on _him_.

 

“Don’t call me that,” DP muttered, the scraping slowing down before speeding up once more, with renewed vigor and determination. Peter was quite certain that by now, DP must have scraped the top layer of steel off poor Daisy. “Not anymore.”

 

“What?”

 

“Call me _Deadpool_.” Another lone, disconsolate scrape. “I’m Deadpool.”

 

Confused, Peter spread his hands in surrender. He’d rarely been able to deny DP anything—within reason—and this was no different. “Alright, Dee—uh, Deadpool. But why?” he asked, even as he was sure he both knew and didn’t _want_ to know exactly why.

 

“You know why, Spider-Man.” DP’s voice was like stone: cool, heavy, and with absolutely no give. And it was then that Peter noticed that DP was calling him _Spider-Man_. Not “Spides,” “Spidey,” “Websy,” “Baby Boy,” or any of the other initially annoying, but eventually endearing nicknames he’d dubbed his favorite superhero. “Fuck, I don’t even know why you bothered to come here—”

 

“DP—”

 

“—but you should probably go,” DP said in a firm, final voice, like a door that Peter hadn’t even realized had been open—or one he’d been taking for granted—closing shut in his face. Peter gaped behind the safety of his mask . . . with the safety of DP’s diverted gaze. Daisy looked sharp enough to skin a crocodile, now.

 

“You should probably go,” DP said again, soft and strange sounding, as if he didn’t expect Peter— _Spider-Man_ —to hear it.

 

“I don’t think I should, DP,” Peter managed to say around a sudden lump in his throat. He honestly couldn’t tell what was causing it: the thought of DP kicking him out, or the thought of DP being on his own at what was clearly a time of consternation. “I don’t think I _could_.”

 

At that amendment, DP snorted again, placing Daisy next to Matilda with tender reverence. The sort of reverence Peter knew from recent experience felt . . . like a _benediction_. Along with those scarred, callused, oddly gentle hands. . . .

 

Peter blinked his way out of a useless, but powerful reverie, fingers biting into his palms to quell an equally powerful, but ultimately unhelpful reaction. In the space of that blink, he found himself staring into DP’s dark grey eyes, set in the magnificent ruin of his face. That gaze was intense and startling, because for all that Peter had gotten used to seeing DP’s scarred, rugged features, he’d never quite gotten used to those startlingly direct, chasm-deep _eyes_. Those eyes seemed to always be demanding something of Peter that he would give if he _could_ —if he even had _it_ to give—but knew that he couldn’t. And more importantly, _shouldn’t_.

 

But that point was moot, anyway, because at this late date Peter had _nothing_ left to give, but Spider-Man, and DP had already _had_ the masked hero. In quite a few senses of the word. The only senses that were _safe_.

 

“And why _can’t_ you leave?” DP asked almost mockingly, though his face was set in lines of genuine curiosity. “Feet get stuck to the floor? Again?”

 

The joke fell flat—probably one of Yellow’s, since the easily-excitable Box tended to think it was a comedian as well as a symptom—and anyway, temporary loss of control of his powers was no joking matter to Peter. Even if it only happened rarely, and only when he was alone with DP.

 

“No, DP, I . . . I can’t leave because I’m . . . _worried_ for you.”

 

DP’s left brow quirked and his lips pursed a little. “No one worries about me. I’m _Deadpool_ ,” he said flatly, as if Peter was stupid.

 

Both tone and gaze were meant to offend and wound, but Peter wasn’t. DP had lost that particular power a long time ago. Peter shook his head. “That’s why I’m worried about you, big guy.” Glancing back into the living room through the arched kitchen entryway, Peter’s gaze lingered on an absolutely _wrecked,_ brown Barca Lounger. The once-shining leather was now dull, and crudded up with blood, brain matter, and other fluids.

 

DP called it the Throne of Misery. And it was, Peter knew, where the merc most often . . . unalived himself out of despair, or simple boredom.

 

 _“The Throne of Misery? Did Yellow make that up?” Peter had asked when he’d first eyed the creepy chair almost three years ago. DP—still just_ Deadpool _to him, then—had been half-hanging off Peter’s arm. There'd also been one leg half-hanging off Deadpool. Hence Peter being the one to bring the man back to his "lair" on the lower east side. It was his very first visit to the insanely annoying (annoyingly insane) mercenary’s place._

_Deadpool, barely conscious, but unwilling to be carried except when Peter was actually swinging them back into Manhattan, had wheezed a pained laugh, “Nah. Stole that from some stand-up comic.”_

 

“I’m worried that you’re gonna sit in that thing and maybe eat one of your guns,” Peter said plainly. “Again.”

 

DP didn’t even wince, though he _did_ shrug, cucumber-cool, and stand up. He strode past Peter, who shivered, his spidey-sense going completely haywire for a few seconds, and in a way it never had for anyone else. Not even Gwen. Peter inhaled DP’s familiar, somehow comforting scent: sweat, leather, steel, and something ridiculously musky and masculine that was just _Wade_.

 

Then he was turning unsteadily to watch as DP stood in front of the Throne and brooded at it, fingers pinching his chapped, full lower lip in absent consideration.

 

“What’s it to ya if I do, Wall-Crawler?”

 

Peter sniffed. It was _a_ nickname, but it didn’t sit well in DP’s mouth. It was more of a J.J. Jameson sort of moniker.

 

“I don’t want to leave here and have you blow your fucking _brains_ out in that fucking _monstrosity_.” Peter pointed at the chair, repressing a shudder.

 

“Maybe it doesn’t matter, what _you_ want.” DP sighed, and turned away from the Throne, stepping, instead, toward the black leather sofa. He flopped on it ostentatiously, turning his currently unreadable eyes to Peter. “For once, anyway.”

 

Frowning, Peter crossed his arms and made his way to the couch, but not so close that he loomed over DP or had any other distracting reveries of other times he’d stood over the mercenary. Though he could have sworn that for a few moments, he felt phantom fingers, rough but reverent, and phantom lips, dry but soft, worshiping his chest and abdomen. “What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

 

DP smirked crookedly, running his oddly impersonal gaze up and down Peter’s body, until Peter had to restrain himself from turning away or shifting, so his reaction to that look was less obvious. At this late date, DP _had_ to know what he did to Peter, and so inappropriately . . . so _effortlessly_. “Figure it out for yourself. But do it somewhere else, capiche? _Golden Girls_ is on in five.”

 

“No, DP. I’m not going ‘til I know you’re okay,” Peter mumbled, flushing despite the mask. It was suddenly making him hot and itchy about the face and he wanted—for more than that reason—to finally, _finally_ take it off for _someone_.

 

For DP . . . for _Wade_. . . .

 

But he _couldn’t_.

 

He never _had_.

 

Scratching at his covered cheek, Peter went on in the face of DP’s disbelieving expression. “I care about you, and I don’t want you to hurt yourself anymore. You don’t _deserve_ that.”

 

“What do _you_ know about what I deserve, Little Spider?” DP asked almost merrily, putting his booted feet up on the scuffed, messy coffee table.

 

“I know . . . damnit, I _know_ you deserve a _lot_ better than you’ve gotten maybe _ever_ ,” Peter whispered, wringing his hands again. “You deserve to be _happy_. And barring that, you at least deserve peace of mind. Wade—”

 

“Even if I _did_ deserve those things, Spider-Man, I never _get_ to be happy. Or to have peace of mind. I’m not wired that way.” DP snatched the remote control up from under a cushion, but didn’t turn on the television—a seventy-two-inch behemoth that Peter’s senses could barely handle when DP _really_ cranked it up loud and fiddled with the color settings.

 

“Let me help you,” tumbled from Peter’s dry lips. DP laughed, sounding more weary than bitter.

 

“I thought maybe, once upon a time, that you _could_. Maybe _you_ . . . _whoever you are_ under the spandex . . . could maybe help me. Maybe _save_ me." DP's unhappy smile was now a grimace and he absently took his feet off the table, something years of play-dates with Peter nagging at him had finally drilled into DP's hard head: no feet on the table. "But I was wrong. No one can help me _or_ save me. I’m doomed. Or damned. Or both.”

 

Shaking his head, Peter approached DP and instead of sitting next to him, found himself kneeling at the mercenary’s large, booted feet, between sofa and coffee table. DP was looking at Peter as if he’d lost his mind.

 

“Let me help you,” Peter plead again, voice cracking under the weight of some great and terrible welling-up inside of him—as painful as it was frightening. “ _Please_ , DP, I—I _care_ about you, and—”

 

“Horseshit!”

 

“I do!”

 

“Tell yourself that, if it lets that do-gooder conscience of yours leave you alone while you’re trying to sleep.” DP’s voice was hard. “Lie to yourself, if you want, but don’t bother lying to _me_ , Spider-Man, because I can assure you: I’m not worth it.”

 

Peter bit his lip and wanted to reach for DP’s hand, the one not holding the remote, but didn’t. He could barely breathe, for that strange, scary welling, let alone move his arm without it shaking as if he was infirm. “Even if I were inclined to lie—which I’m _not_ —you’d be _worth_ some pretty lies. You’d be worth _every_ lie, ‘til my soul was Hell-bound for eternity.” The words fell from his lips, both true and nonsensical. Peter wasn’t even sure what they meant. He didn’t believe in any Hell—or Heaven—but what each person made for themselves.

 

Something in DP’s stony face softened from confusion, if nothing else. Then he was looking at Peter warily. “What’re you _talkin’_ about, Baby Boy?”

 

“Fucked if _I_ know.” Peter’s face broke into a wide, but tremulous smile that he was sure DP could see despite the mask. “But you called me ‘Baby Boy.’”

 

DP’s eyes widened and he colored, huffing defensively and crossing his big arms across his bigger chest. Then he was making an irritable, distracted face, and muttering to himself. “No, White, I am _not_ love’s bitch. Not anymore, anyway . . . and you’re right, Yellow. Shoulda _never_ got up in that no matter _how_ tempting and sweet, tight and hot. Hindsight.”

 

Peter turned positively scarlet when DP focused on him once more, eyes flashing with unhidden desire and yearning . . . before they became blank walls again. “Look, why’re you still here, _really_? Don’t spout anymore shit about how worried you are about me unaliving myself. I’m only ever dead _temporarily_. I could blow my brains all over the back of that chair every day for the rest of _your_ life and it wouldn’t mean _doodly_ or _squat_ to anyone. Because I _always_ come back. Like herpes.”

 

“It means something to _me_ , DP.” Peter hung his head and exhaled tiredly. “It hurts me to think of you suffering, even if you’re immortal. I don’t like the idea of you in pain.”

 

“Oh, really?” Now, DP sounded eerily calm but _furious_. He leaned forward, his eyes pinning Peter in place. “Then why the _fuck_ ’re you playin’ mind-games with me, huh?”

 

“Mind-games?” Shocked, Peter sat back a bit. “I don’t—” _understand_ , he meant to finish, but DP talked over him.

 

“Oh, the hell you _don’t_ play games!” DP’s eyes narrowed grimly. “Pull me close only to push me away is your fucking M.O.!”

 

“What—what do you mean—I don’t—”

 

DP shook his head once, forbiddingly and Peter, despite his shock, stopped his denials. “Of _course_ you do. It’s all _any_ of you ever do. Play games with me, make me lose myself in you, then fuckin’ _wreck_ me. No matter how much I try, it isn’t enough to make up for the fact that I’m a goddamn psychopath and a _freak_ , and I _get_ that—really, I _do_. No one, especially someone like _you_ , is _ever_ gonna love me back. And that’s fair. It’s what I _deserve_. But why do ya gotta fuck my _heart_ over for shits and giggles? Huh? Jesus, I thought, of _any_ of them, _you_ , Spidey, were _better_ than that. I thought. . . .” but DP trailed off, not bothering to elaborate further on what he’d thought.

 

Still almost numb with shock, Peter leaned toward DP again, even as the man leaned _back_ , wary again.

 

“You . . . you _love_ me?”

 

DP blinked slowly, almost blankly. Then his face twisted into something as rueful as it was heart-broken.

 

“Don’t act like you didn’t know,” he said quietly. “Stop the _games_ , Spidey. It’s not fun and it’s not _fair_.”

 

Peter scooted to the right, until he was between DP and the coffee table, and between DP’s right leg and his left. That wary, rueful, broken expression followed him, but didn’t so much as flicker. Peter reached out slowly, so DP could stop him, if his touch was unwelcome. But Peter was certain that it wouldn’t be.

 

He placed his gloved hands on the mercenary’s thick, powerful thighs, noticing the way the muscles seemed to quiver and jump like tadpoles under his light touch. “DP . . . so help me, I haven’t been trying to run games on you. Haven’t been trying to hurt you or make you suffer. I didn’t know that you . . . that you love me.” An unbidden laugh bubbled out of Peter’s achy throat, a harsh, unlovely bark of sound. “Fuck, Wade, I can’t imagine why you _would_. I’m not . . . I don’t . . . I _can't_. . . .”

 

“I know, Spidey, believe me . . . I know. You’re not into butter-faced monsters and don’t want me in the hearts-and-flowers way. No need to let me down easy, or to beat a dead horse. I’m smarter than I look.” DP glanced away for a few moments, then back, his face confused once more. “Wait—whaddaya _mean_ you can’t imagine why I would? Why I would _what_?”

 

Peter was the one to blink this time, though DP couldn’t see it. “Why you would love me,” he said simply.

 

DP didn’t look any less confused for having gotten an answer. “Seriously? No, _of course_ , I know he can’t be fuckin’ _serious_ , White. Maybe I’m hallucinating, again.” He hit himself on the side of the head _hard_ , but not especially meanly. “I know, Yellow, it’s not possible that _Spider-Man_ is _that_ emotionally damaged and insecure. That’s more _my_ gig, than his. I’m clearly hearing things.”

 

Paling, then blushing again, Peter’s face scrunched under his mask. “I’m not insecure,” he protested.

 

“But you _are_ damaged?” DP asked curiously.

 

“I—look, DP, I don’t have a lot of people clamoring to be a part of my life—even my civilian life.” Peter barked that awful laugh again, bowing his head. “I’m no prize. I have issues that aren’t gonna go away, maybe ever. Yes, some are emotional, but most are . . . just part and parcel of being me. Character flaws, and consequences of who I am and choices I’ve made. Everything and anyone I’ve ever loved and that’s loved me back has been taken from me, either by time or circumstance, except for my aunt. My parents, my uncle, Gwen, MJ, Harry—I just can’t keep what I love. It all just . . . slips through my fingers. Gets carried away,” he finished, holding up his red-gloved hands and looking at them. Because of the sudden tears in his eyes, his hands appeared to be the covered in fresh blood. He shuddered. “I _kill_ what I love, DP. I kill what loves _me_. Or I just _lose_ it . . . and I don’t—I _can’t_ lose you, too. Not after everything. Don’t . . . don’t love me. It won’t end well.”

 

After a minute of blinking away those tears—most of which fell to soak his mask—Peter started as a heavy, gentle hand settled on his head.

 

“No offense, Spidey, but _fuck you_ , if you think you can tell me not to love you and I’ll obey.” DP’s voice wasn’t hard, now, but hoarse with emotion and self-restraint. When Peter didn’t look up or respond, DP’s hand slid down to cup his jaw and tilt it up. Peter didn’t fight it, gazing dully at DP’s familiar face.

 

(Peter’d never found the other man hideous. Different-looking, uncommon, but not hideous. In fact, since the first time DP had unmasked for him, Peter had been fascinated by that face—from those mysterious, stormy eyes to that blinding smile.

 

The scars, to Peter’s way of thinking, added character and dimension.)

 

“Fuck you,” DP whispered almost reverently, “if you think I’m gonna let you think that shit about yourself and not challenge it . . . not prove you wrong.”

 

Sighing, Peter tried half-heartedly to turn his face away, but DP wasn’t having it. “DP, you don’t _know_ —”

 

“Then _tell_ me.” DP was still whispering. He leaned down, until his forehead touched Peter’s. “ _Please_. Tell me _something_ about _you_. I tell you all about _me_ all the time. Whatever you ask. Because it’s _you_. Because you _care_ about me like no one ever has. Like I never thought anyone _would_.”

 

“That’s because you _deserve_ to be cared about. To be _loved_. By someone better than me. I’m,” here, Peter laughed again, still mirthlessly, “I’m a fucking mess, DP!”

 

DP’s brows quirked again as he sat back. “Look who you’re tellin’, Baby Boy. We fucking messes can smell our own.” This time, Peter’s laugh wasn’t as awful as the other three, but more tears nonetheless leaked from his eyes. The mask already felt wet and clingy and uncomfortable. Oh, how he longed to take it off. . . .

 

DP was smiling at him a little: a lopsided, strangely vulnerable thing that was very nearly trembling. Peter’s heart, the broken, always-aching muscle in his chest, ached in a different way than usual. This ache was a sweet, deep, complex yearning. It made him want to climb into DP’s lap and hold him till the end of the universe.

 

But he couldn’t. _Of course_ , he couldn’t. Because all that Peter Parker loved got carried away.

 

“I don’t want anything to happen to you, DP. They _died_. Except for the ones who left. I’m _never_ enough to save them. Never enough for them to _stay_. If _you_ left me, too, I’d . . . I don’t know what I’d do.” Peter inhaled shakily, feeling raw and hollowed out, that previous welling feeling diffused throughout his exhausted body with this admission. “I’m just so _tired_ of people leaving me. . . .”

 

After staring at him for a minute, DP tilted his head a bit, his eyes narrowed but not angry. “What’s your first name?”

 

DP had never asked before, even though he’d told Peter his own name multiple times—as if _Wade_ _Wilson_ wasn’t both infamous, and synonymous with _Deadpool_ —and Peter instantly tensed. “I can’t—”

 

“You _can_ , Baby Boy. Just a first name? Let me know who I’m dealing with. A _Tobey_? An _Andrew_?” DP grinned, and Peter found himself smiling back and rolling his eyes. “Or maybe you’re a _Tom_?”

 

He’d never once lied to DP, except by omission, and now didn’t seem like the time to start. Even though he was trembling and cold and nervous and near tears again. His will—his _wall_ —had been steadily crumbling since he’d entered DP’s apartment.

 

Maybe it had been even since that first time—the two of them quickly webbed to a ceiling above a troop of suddenly-present, but thankfully oblivious guards in a HYDRA facility in Hoboken—he’d shoved their masks half-up and kissed DP, awkward and urgent. Until the guards were long-gone, and he and DP were both hard and writhing silently, but furiously against each other. All the while, those gentle, giant hands had cupped Peter's face like was it the most fragile, precious thing they’d ever held. . . .

 

_Later that night, DP had held Peter’s face that same way as they made out on DP’s sofa. Then as they stumbled into DP’s disaster of a bedroom. Then intermittently, as they’d divested each other of their costumes. Peter had caught DP’s hands as careful, questioning fingers had hesitantly plucked at Peter’s half-pushed up mask._

 

 _“The mask stays,” Peter had insisted breathlessly, pulling the mask down all the way. DP—who was naked_ and _maskless, as he tended to be while at home and relaxed—had frowned, his disappointment obvious before his face smoothed over into an all-purpose leer._

 

_“Well, then how’m I supposed to continue sticking my tongue down your throat, Baby Boy?”_

 

 _Peter had laughed and wrapped his legs around DP’s waist, pulling the mercenary close, closer, closest, until they were both groaning from the incidental frottage. DP's cock was hard,_ huge _, and steadily leaking._

 

 _Peter wanted it—wanted_ Wade _—inside him more than he'd ever wanted_ anything _, it felt like. And he meant to_ have him _._

 

 _So he'd grinned, even though DP probably couldn't tell, and bucked up against the mercenary, who swore and hissed under his accelerated breath, his eyelids fluttering shut. "_ Fuck me _, Wade.”_

 

 _After taking a few moments—almost a minute, really—to collect himself, DP had opened his intent, smoldering, stormier-than-ever eyes and pushed Peter's legs wider and higher. His smile was manic and blinding. "Yes,_ sir _!”_

 

 _And DP had been as good as his word. For most of what was left of the night and well into the morning, he’d repeatedly put his back into fucking Peter into a speechless stupor. DP had_ ridiculously _brief refractory time, even more so than Peter._

_Before DP had finally slipped into a sex-induced coma, he had cupped Peter’s face in that protective, tender way again, and kissed his masked lips, murmuring: “So sweet, so_ perfect _. . . my Baby Boy. . . .”_

 

 _Then he was out like a light, sawing wood on Peter’s shoulder. In a state of awe and surprise—he hadn't been a virgin, but he'd never been with a_ man _before, despite his occasional curiosity—still rather sore and come-stupid, Peter had, suffice it to say, stayed until he had to leave or be_ super _late for work. And until the moment he finally made himself go, he’d been unable to stop staring at and running his hands over DP, who was a sleeping, snoring Adonis in the kind morning light. . . ._

 

“No, none of those,” Peter murmured solemnly, blinking away the memory and taking a deep breath. He felt as if he was teetering on the edge of an abyss. A _familiar_ abyss, at the bottom of which lay the dashed hopes and dreams of a lifetime. But he couldn’t lie to those eyes—not even by omission—anymore. He felt truth being drawn out of him as poison from a wound, even as his own shaking hands slowly ascended to his collar, and the hem of the mask. The material felt sweaty and kind of gross even through his gloves, as he skinned the mask up to his nose and paused. That was as much of Peter’s face as DP had ever seen. . . .

 

Then Peter was momentarily in red-tinted darkness as the mask passed his wet eyes and rolled over his damp, dark hair. For a moment, he was left blinking his vision back to normal. He dropped the mask on the coffee table, and when he spoke, his voice shook. “My name . . . is Peter. Peter Parker.”

 

DP’s eyes widened as if, for all his seeming confidence, he hadn’t really expected even an _answer_ , let alone . . . _this_ : the unmasking of Spider-Man. His grin slipped into a warm, pleased smile that made Peter’s insides flutter and his breath catch. The way they had been, increasingly, for months—maybe _years_ —of his friendship with DP.

 

The way it _hadn’t_ since Gwen.

 

“Pleased to meet you, Peter Parker. You’re fuckin’ _gorgeous_ , babe.” Voice unsteady, DP slid from the sofa, onto the floor, pulling Peter into his arms. Peter went with a sense of fear so great his heart began to race . . . and relief so deep— _I’ve found it_ , he thought with something approaching hysteria. _I’m_ home. _At last_ —he sagged in DP’s strong arms, face buried in DP’s hard shoulder and trembling violently as he was held and rocked. He wrapped desperation-strong arms around DP's neck; tears began leaking from his eyes once more and DP murmured in his ear. “Oh, my sweet boy . . . I’m Wade. Wade Wilson. And I ain’t goin’ _nowhere_.”

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: _“Are you angry?”_  
>  “Why would you say that?”  
> “Well you keep eyeing your knife collection, and honestly, it’s slightly disconcerting.”
> 
> Title from excellent the Stephen King short story of the same name.
> 
> [Follow me on Tumblr](https://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com/) for more Stephen King-homages. But mostly for Marvel slash and femslash.


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